Alleged Member of Lizard Squad Arrested by Thames Valley Police

Following the interview on Radio 5 which we reported on the other day, Member Two (AKA 22-year old Vinnie Omari) was arrested by Thames Valley Police, and his equipment seized pending investigation. He has since been released on bail until 10th March 2015, according to a press release.

The South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) has arrested a 22-year-old man from Twickenham on suspicion of fraud by false representation and Computer Misuse Act offences.

The arrest yesterday (30/12) is in connection with an ongoing investigation in to cyber fraud offences which took place between 2013 and August 2014 during which victims reported funds being stolen from their PayPal accounts.

The arrested man was released on bail until 10 March.

Following the interview he took part in on BBC Radio 5 (which can be heard on their podcast here), a security blog Krebs On Security identified Omari as the same person who was interviewed by Sky News the very next day. It is unclear whether this information aided the police investigation, or whether it was an already-ongoing one.

Speaking with Daily Dot via email, Omari shared the search warrant and said:

They took everything, Xbox one, phones, laptops, computer USBs, etc.

As the warrant shows, but the Thames Valley press release doesn't, Omari is also being investigated in regards to the attacks perpetrated by Lizard Squad. He refused to comment on the PayPal allegations,

However, despite the arrest and his claims, the Lizard Squad homepage has the following message:

P.S. None of us were arrested, @FinestSquad was nothing but
a few copy-pastes, you guys are pro-hackers. hehehehehe <3

There is no indication how long this message has been there, or whether it is a recent addition, though there are tweets going around that Lizard Squad recruited "members" to act as fall guys. 

Lizard Squad have announced on Twitter the launch of a service named Lizard Stresser, which amounts to a personalised DDoS attack service, despite its name which suggests a network stress tester.

For a sum of bitcoin, anyone can have any network put down from 20 minutes up to 20 days. Krebs On Security states that it is similar to titaniumstresser. So similar, in fact, that it is the exact same thing.

What this means for future PSN and Xbox Live attacks, we can only guess, as apparently over two dozen people have taken up the offer.

Finally, the group Anonymous have posted a video to YouTube saying that Lizard Squad have stepped over the line by attacking the Tor network in the last few days. Tor is a web browser used by people who wish to remain basically invisible online, such as Anonymous.

We'll keep you updated.